A Revelation.
The next day Romola, like every other Florentine, was excited about the
departure of the French. Besides her other reasons for gladness, she
had a dim hope, which she was conscious was half superstitious, that
those new anxieties about Tito, having come with the burdensome guests,
might perhaps vanish with them. The French had been in Florence hardly
eleven days, but in that space she had felt more acute unhappiness than
she had known in her life before. Tito had adopted the hateful armour
on the day of their arrival, and though she could frame no distinct
notion why their departure should remove the cause of his fear—though,
when she thought of that cause, the image of the prisoner grasping him,
as she had seen it in Piero’s sketch, urged itself before her and
excluded every other—still, when the French were gone, she would be rid
of something that was strongly associated with her pain.
Wrapped in her mantle she waited under the loggia at the top of the
house, and watched for the glimpses of the troops and the royal retinue
passing the bridges on their way to the Porta San Piero, that looks
towards Siena and Rome. She even returned to her station when the gates
had been closed, that she might feel herself vibrating with the great
peal of the bells. It was dusk then, and when at last she descended
into the library, she lit her lamp with the resolution that she would
overcome the agitation which had made her idle all day, and sit down to
work at her copying of the catalogue. Tito had left home early in the
morning, and she did not expect him yet. Before he came she intended to
leave the library, and sit in the pretty saloon, with the dancing
nymphs and the birds. She had done so every evening since he had
objected to the library as chill and gloomy.
To her great surprise, she had not been at work long before Tito
entered. Her first thought was, how cheerless he would feel in the wide
darkness of this great room, with one little oil-lamp burning at the
further end, and the fire nearly out. She almost ran towards him.
“Tito, dearest, I did not know you would come so soon,” she said,
nervously, putting up her white arms to unwind his becchetto.
“I am not welcome then?” he said, with one of his brightest smiles,
clasping her, but playfully holding his head back from her.
“Tito!” She uttered the word in a tone of pretty, loving reproach, and
then he kissed her fondly, stroked her hair, as his manner was, and
seemed not to mind about taking off his mantle yet. Romola quivered
with delight. All the emotions of the day had been preparing in her a
keener sensitiveness to the return of this habitual manner. “It will
come back,” she was saying to herself, “the old happiness will perhaps
come back. He is like himself again.”
Tito was taking great pains to be like himself; his heart was
palpitating with anxiety.
“If I had expected you so soon,” said Romola, as she at last helped him
to take off his wrappings, “I would have had a little festival prepared
to this joyful ringing of the bells. I did not mean to be here in the
library when you came home.”
“Never mind, sweet,” he said, carelessly. “Do not think about the fire.
Come—come and sit down.”
There was a low stool against Tito’s chair, and that was Romola’s
habitual seat when they were talking together. She rested her arm on
his knee, as she used to do on her father’s, and looked up at him while
he spoke. He had never yet noticed the presence of the portrait, and
she had not mentioned it—thinking of it all the more.
“I have been enjoying the clang of the bells for the first time, Tito,”
she began. “I liked being shaken and deafened by them: I fancied I was
something like a Bacchante possessed by a divine rage. Are not the
people looking very joyful to-night?”
“Joyful after a sour and pious fashion,” said Tito, with a shrug. “But,
in truth, those who are left behind in Florence have little cause to be
joyful: it seems to me, the most reasonable ground of gladness would be
to have got out of Florence.”
Tito had sounded the desired key-note without any trouble, or
appearance of premeditation. He spoke with no emphasis, but he looked
grave enough to make Romola ask rather anxiously—
“Why, Tito? Are there fresh troubles?”
“No need of fresh ones, my Romola. There are three strong parties in
the city, all ready to fly at each other’s throats. And if the Frate’s
party is strong enough to frighten the other two into silence, as seems
most likely, life will be as pleasant and amusing as a funeral. They
have the plan of a Great Council simmering already; and if they get it,
the man who sings sacred Lauds the loudest will be the most eligible
for office. And besides that, the city will be so drained by the
payment of this great subsidy to the French king, and by the war to get
back Pisa, that the prospect would be dismal enough without the rule of
fanatics. On the whole, Florence will be a delightful place for those
worthies who entertain themselves in the evening by going into crypts
and lashing themselves; but for everything else, the exiles have the
best of it. For my own part, I have been thinking seriously that we
should be wise to quit Florence, my Romola.”
She started. “Tito, how could we leave Florence? Surely you do not
think I could leave it—at least, not yet—not for a long while.” She had
turned cold and trembling, and did not find it quite easy to speak.
Tito must know the reasons she had in her mind.
“That is all a fabric of your own imagination, my sweet one. Your
secluded life has made you lay such false stress on a few things. You
know I used to tell you, before we were married, that I wished we were
somewhere else than in Florence. If you had seen more places and more
people, you would know what I mean when I say that there is something
in the Florentines that reminds me of their cutting spring winds. I
like people who take life less eagerly; and it would be good for my
Romola, too, to see a new life. I should like to dip her a little in
the soft waters of forgetfulness.”
He leaned forward and kissed her brow, and laid his hand on her fair
hair again; but she felt his caress no more than if he had kissed a
mask. She was too much agitated by the sense of the distance between
their minds to be conscious that his lips touched her.
“Tito, it is not because I suppose Florence is the pleasantest place in
the world that I desire not to quit it. It is because I—because we have
to see my father’s wish fulfilled. My godfather is old; he is
seventy-one; we could not leave it to him.”
“It is precisely those superstitions which hang about your mind like
bedimming clouds, my Romola, that make one great reason why I could
wish we were two hundred leagues from Florence. I am obliged to take
care of you in opposition to your own will: if those dear eyes, that
look so tender, see falsely, I must see for them, and save my wife from
wasting her life in disappointing herself by impracticable dreams.”
Romola sat silent and motionless: she could not blind herself to the
direction in which Tito’s words pointed: he wanted to persuade her that
they might get the library deposited in some monastery, or take some
other ready means to rid themselves of a task, and of a tie to
Florence; and she was determined never to submit her mind to his
judgment on this question of duty to her father; she was inwardly
prepared to encounter any sort of pain in resistance. But the
determination was kept latent in these first moments by the
heart-crushing sense that now at last she and Tito must be confessedly
divided in their wishes. He was glad of her silence; for, much as he
had feared the strength of her feeling, it was impossible for him, shut
up in the narrowness that hedges in all merely clever, unimpassioned
men, not to over-estimate the persuasiveness of his own arguments. His
conduct did not look ugly to himself, and his imagination did not
suffice to show him exactly how it would look to Romola. He went on in
the same gentle, remonstrating tone.
“You know, dearest—your own clear judgment always showed you—that the
notion of isolating a collection of books and antiquities, and
attaching a single name to them for ever, was one that had no valid,
substantial good for its object: and yet more, one that was liable to
be defeated in a thousand ways. See what has become of the Medici
collections! And, for my part, I consider it even blameworthy to
entertain those petty views of appropriation: why should any one be
reasonably glad that Florence should possess the benefits of learned
research and taste more than any other city? I understand your feeling
about the wishes of the dead; but wisdom puts a limit to these
sentiments, else lives might be continually wasted in that sort of
futile devotion—like praising deaf gods for ever. You gave your life to
your father while he lived; why should you demand more of yourself?”
“Because it was a trust,” said Romola, in a low but distinct voice. “He
trusted me, he trusted you, Tito. I did not expect you to feel anything
else about it—to feel as I do—but I did expect you to feel that.”
“Yes, dearest, of course I should feel it on a point where your
father’s real welfare or happiness was concerned; but there is no
question of that now. If we believed in purgatory, I should be as
anxious as you to have masses said; and if I believed it could now pain
your father to see his library preserved and used in a rather different
way from what he had set his mind on, I should share the strictness of
your views. But a little philosophy should teach us to rid ourselves of
those air-woven fetters that mortals hang round themselves, spending
their lives in misery under the mere imagination of weight. Your mind,
which seizes ideas so readily, my Romola, is able to discriminate
between substantial good and these brain-wrought fantasies. Ask
yourself, dearest, what possible good can these books and antiquities
do, stowed together under your father’s name in Florence, more than
they would do if they were divided or carried elsewhere? Nay, is not
the very dispersion of such things in hands that know how to value
them, one means of extending their usefulness? This rivalry of Italian
cities is very petty and illiberal. The loss of Constantinople was the
gain of the whole civilised world.”
Romola was still too thoroughly under the painful pressure of the new
revelation Tito was making of himself, for her resistance to find any
strong vent. As that fluent talk fell on her ears there was a rising
contempt within her, which only made her more conscious of her bruised,
despairing love, her love for the Tito she had married and believed in.
Her nature, possessed with the energies of strong emotion, recoiled
from this hopelessly shallow readiness which professed to appropriate
the widest sympathies and had no pulse for the nearest. She still spoke
like one who was restrained from showing all she felt. She had only
drawn away her arm from his knee, and sat with her hands clasped before
her, cold and motionless as locked waters.
“You talk of substantial good, Tito! Are faithfulness, and love, and
sweet grateful memories, no good? Is it no good that we should keep our
silent promises on which others build because they believe in our love
and truth? Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured?
Or, is it good that we should harden our hearts against all the wants
and hopes of those who have depended on us? What good can belong to men
who have such souls? To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches
for themselves, and live and die with their base selves as their best
companions.”
Her voice had gradually risen till there was a ring of scorn in the
last words; she made a slight pause, but he saw there were other words
quivering on her lips, and he chose to let them come.
“I know of no good for cities or the world if they are to be made up of
such beings. But I am not thinking of other Italian cities and the
whole civilised world—I am thinking of my father, and of my love and
sorrow for him, and of his just claims on us. I would give up anything
else, Tito,—I would leave Florence,—what else did I live for but for
him and you? But I will not give up that duty. What have I to do with
your arguments? It was a yearning of _his_ heart, and therefore it is a
yearning of mine.”
Her voice, from having been tremulous, had become full and firm. She
felt that she had been urged on to say all that it was needful for her
to say. She thought, poor thing, there was nothing harder to come than
this struggle against Tito’s suggestions as against the meaner part of
herself.
He had begun to see clearly that he could not persuade her into assent:
he must take another course, and show her that the time for resistance
was past. That, at least, would put an end to further struggle; and if
the disclosure were not made by himself to-night, to-morrow it must be
made in another way. This necessity nerved his courage; and his
experience of her affectionateness and unexpected submissiveness, ever
since their marriage until now, encouraged him to hope that, at last,
she would accommodate herself to what had been his will.
“I am sorry to hear you speak in that spirit of blind persistence, my
Romola,” he said, quietly, “because it obliges me to give you pain. But
I partly foresaw your opposition, and as a prompt decision was
necessary, I avoided that obstacle, and decided without consulting you.
The very care of a husband for his wife’s interest compels him to that
separate action sometimes—even when he has such a wife as you, my
Romola.”
She turned her eyes on him in breathless inquiry.
“I mean,” he said, answering her look, “that I have arranged for the
transfer, both of the books and of the antiquities, where they will
find the highest use and value. The books have been bought for the Duke
of Milan, the marbles and bronzes and the rest are going to France: and
both will be protected by the stability of a great Power, instead of
remaining in a city which is exposed to ruin.”
Before he had finished speaking, Romola had started from her seat, and
stood up looking down at him, with tightened hands falling before her,
and, for the first time in her life, with a flash of fierceness in her
scorn and anger.
“You have _sold_ them?” she asked, as if she distrusted her ears.
“I have,” said Tito, quailing a little. The scene was unpleasant—the
descending scorn already scorched him.
“You are a treacherous man!” she said, with something grating in her
voice, as she looked down at him.
She was silent for a minute, and he sat still, feeling that ingenuity
was powerless just now. Suddenly she turned away, and said in an
agitated tone, “It may be hindered—I am going to my godfather.”
In an instant Tito started up, went to the door, locked it, and took
out the key. It was time for all the masculine predominance that was
latent in him to show itself. But he was not angry; he only felt that
the moment was eminently unpleasant, and that when this scene was at an
end he should be glad to keep away from Romola for a little while. But
it was absolutely necessary first that she should be reduced to
passiveness.
“Try to calm yourself a little, Romola,” he said, leaning in the
easiest attitude possible against a pedestal under the bust of a grim
old Roman. Not that he was inwardly easy: his heart palpitated with a
moral dread, against which no chain-armour could be found. He had
locked in his wife’s anger and scorn, but he had been obliged to lock
himself in with it; and his blood did not rise with contest—his olive
cheek was perceptibly paled.
Romola had paused and turned her eyes on him as she saw him take his
stand and lodge the key in his scarsella. Her eyes were flashing, and
her whole frame seemed to be possessed by impetuous force that wanted
to leap out in some deed. All the crushing pain of disappointment in
her husband, which had made the strongest part of her consciousness a
few minutes before, was annihilated by the vehemence of her
indignation. She could not care in this moment that the man she was
despising as he leaned there in his loathsome beauty—she could not care
that he was her husband; she could only feel that she despised him. The
pride and fierceness of the old Bardo blood had been thoroughly awaked
in her for the first time.
“Try at least to understand the fact,” said Tito, “and do not seek to
take futile steps which may be fatal. It is of no use for you to go to
your godfather. Messer Bernardo cannot reverse what I have done. Only
sit down. You would hardly wish, if you were quite yourself, to make
known to any third person what passes between us in private.”
Tito knew that he had touched the right fibre there. But she did not
sit down; she was too unconscious of her body voluntarily to change her
attitude.
“Why can it not be reversed?” she said, after a pause. “Nothing is
moved yet.”
“Simply because the sale has been concluded by written agreement; the
purchasers have left Florence, and I hold the bonds for the
purchase-money.”
“If my father had suspected you of being a faithless man,” said Romola,
in a tone of bitter scorn, which insisted on darting out before she
could say anything else, “he would have placed the library safely out
of your power. But death overtook him too soon, and when you were sure
his ear was deaf, and his hand stiff, you robbed him.” She paused an
instant, and then said, with gathered passion, “Have you robbed
somebody else, who is _not_ dead? Is that the reason you wear armour?”
Romola had been driven to utter the words as men are driven to use the
lash of the horsewhip. At first, Tito felt horribly cowed; it seemed to
him that the disgrace he had been dreading would be worse than he had
imagined it. But soon there was a reaction: such power of dislike and
resistance as there was within him was beginning to rise against a wife
whose voice seemed like the herald of a retributive fate. Her, at
least, his quick mind told him that he might master.
“It is useless,” he said, coolly, “to answer the words of madness,
Romola. Your peculiar feeling about your father has made you mad at
this moment. Any rational person looking at the case from a due
distance will see that I have taken the wisest course. Apart from the
influence of your exaggerated feelings on him, I am convinced that
Messer Bernardo would be of that opinion.”
“He would not!” said Romola. “He lives in the hope of seeing my
father’s wish exactly fulfilled. We spoke of it together only
yesterday. He will help me yet. Who are these men to whom you have sold
my father’s property?”
“There is no reason why you should not be told, except that it
signifies little. The Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de
Beaucaire are now on their way with the king to Siena.”
“They may be overtaken and persuaded to give up their purchase,” said
Romola, eagerly, her anger beginning to be surmounted by anxious
thought.
“No, they may not,” said Tito, with cool decision.
“Why?”
“Because I do not choose that they should.”
“But if you were paid the money?—we will pay you the money,” said
Romola.
No words could have disclosed more fully her sense of alienation from
Tito; but they were spoken with less of bitterness than of anxious
pleading. And he felt stronger, for he saw that the first impulse of
fury was past.
“No, my Romola. Understand that such thoughts as these are
impracticable. You would not, in a reasonable moment, ask your
godfather to bury three thousand florins in addition to what he has
already paid on the library. I think your pride and delicacy would
shrink from that.”
She began to tremble and turn cold again with discouragement, and sank
down on the carved chest near which she was standing. He went on in a
clear voice, under which she shuddered, as if it had been a narrow cold
stream coursing over a hot cheek.
“Moreover, it is not my will that Messer Bernardo should advance the
money, even if the project were not an utterly wild one. And I beg you
to consider, before you take any step or utter any word on the subject,
what will be the consequences of your placing yourself in opposition to
me, and trying to exhibit your husband in the odious light which your
own distempered feelings cast over him. What object will you serve by
injuring me with Messer Bernardo? The event is irrevocable, the library
is sold, and you are my wife.”
Every word was spoken for the sake of a calculated effect, for his
intellect was urged into the utmost activity by the danger of the
crisis. He knew that Romola’s mind would take in rapidly enough all the
wide meaning of his speech. He waited and watched her in silence.
She had turned her eyes from him, and was looking on the ground, and in
that way she sat for several minutes. When she spoke, her voice was
quite altered,—it was quiet and cold.
“I have one thing to ask.”
“Ask anything that I can do without injuring us both, Romola.”
“That you will give me that portion of the money which belongs to my
godfather, and let me pay him.”
“I must have some assurance from you, first, of the attitude you intend
to take towards me.”
“Do you believe in assurances, Tito?” she said, with a tinge of
returning bitterness.
“From you, I do.”
“I will do you no harm. I shall disclose nothing. I will say nothing to
pain him or you. You say truly, the event is irrevocable.”
“Then I will do what you desire to-morrow morning.”
“To-night, if possible,” said Romola, “that we may not speak of it
again.”
“It is possible,” he said, moving towards the lamp, while she sat
still, looking away from him with absent eyes.
Presently he came and bent down over her, to put a piece of paper into
her hand. “You will receive something in return, you are aware, my
Romola?” he said, gently, not minding so much what had passed, now he
was secure; and feeling able to try and propitiate her.
“Yes,” she said, taking the paper, without looking at him, “I
understand.”
“And you will forgive me, my Romola, when you have had time to
reflect.” He just touched her brow with his lips, but she took no
notice, and seemed really unconscious of the act. She was aware that he
unlocked the door and went out. She moved her head and listened. The
great door of the court opened and shut again. She started up as if
some sudden freedom had come, and going to her father’s chair where his
picture was propped, fell on her knees before it, and burst into sobs.